The legend of a sheep
by ThisCat
Summary: She lived, she laughed, she learned and she loved. She was loyal, she was little and she was large. She was a lamb and she was a legend. This is her perspective.
1. Prologue

**I have now officially started what I hope will be my first serious-lenght story. I have a bit of it written up already, it has short chapters and I'll be able to update weekly for a while at least.**

**Oh, and Disclaimer: since apparently you need that. If any one of you believe even for a second that I could possibly own something as amazing as One Piece, I am very, very flattered. I don't, though. One Piece belongs to the absolutely amazing Eiichiro Oda.**

* * *

Human souls are formed from their mother's love, and from the friendship and affection of those around them. The soul grows as the child does, though independent, and is the source of the will and emotions.

Humans are not the only ones who have souls. Giants, dwarves and fishmen have them, of course, as do many animals. Even ships have souls.

The soul of a ship is entirely dependent on its crew. A well-treated ship will get a strong will, and can protect its crew from far better than a neglected ship will. This is one of the reasons for the fact that a good crew often fares better in a battle at sea.

As a human is divided into body and mind, a ship has both a physical body and a sprit. This spirit can take any form, though it is nearly always female, but it usually looks somewhat like a human. It can never leave the ship and it cannot be seen by people. If the will of a ship is strong enough, she can create apparitions that can interact with the physical world, and the strongest of ships can even let their own voice be heard.

Ships communicate with each other and certain animals through their spirits. Often, when two or more ships are together, they pass the time by telling each other news from where they have sailed and things they have heard, and by telling stories. Even among ships, there are legends.

One story in particular tells of a ship of such extraordinary will that only a few legends even compare. A ship with a crew that could match armies. A ship that, despite physical weakness, proved herself worthy of such a crew. This is her story.


	2. Birth

The first thing she could ever remember was the sound of the sea.

She had no proper mind yet, just pure awareness.

She heard the smooth, calm sound of the waves on the beach, and the call of the seagulls.

A little closer were the sounds of construction.

They were not separate sounds to her yet. She had no knowledge of what either of them were, but she felt they sounded of promise, and she listened as she drifted off to nothingness again.

* * *

The next time she woke, she could see, and all of a sudden, the sounds she heard held meaning beyond themselves.

The sound of the wind connected to the movement of the treetops above the steep cliff sides.

The short, shrill shouts connected to the small, white flying creatures in the sky.

The even, flowing sounds connected to the line where the ocean met the land, and she knew that, for some reason, she was on the wrong side of it. The calm, blue mother of all waves felt like home before she knew what a home was, and she longed for it. She might have spent hours staring out to the unimaginable expanse of the sea before she turned her attention to that last sound.

That last, little sound of construction, which connected to a man working tirelessly on her body. He looked so small there among the steel and wooden beams of her still-bare skeleton, but she recognized him at once. As the nothingness of unconsciousness approached again, she called out.

_|Dad?|_

* * *

By the time she was half-finished, she had stopped floating in and out of consciousness. The man with the curly, white hair and the horns, whom she was entirely sure was her father, still worked mostly on his own, but sometimes others would come down the slope for lunch and a talk. Usually a man and a woman in pretty clothes and their little daughter. From these conversations, the ship learned about the world and about herself.

Somewhere along the line, her spirit had also solidified into something permanent. She was not tall, nor strongly built. She looked slightly like how she imagined little Kaya would look when she grew older, but she had the curly snow-white hair and the horns of her father. She wore a simple, white sleeveless dress with a belt and no shoes. Her appearance would still waver slightly as she was built, but the basic form stayed the same.

Her father could still neither see nor hear her, but she talked now. She asked about the trees and the birds, the people and the sea, endlessly about the sea, and though he never answered, she sometimes felt like he could hear her.

She knew now that she was land bound only because she was not yet finished, but she still felt trapped. She had never felt the sea around her hull, yet she longed for it. She longed for the freedom of the waves, only a few meters away and yet longer than she could ever hope to reach. When her father was not working on her and there were no other people around, she sat in silence and watched the horizon, thinking of everything that lay beyond.


	3. Maiden Voyage

Her maiden voyage was one of the greatest days in her life, not least because she got her name. When she finally left the shore with her father and the well-dressed family on board, she left it as the Going Merry.

The wind was not particularly strong that day, but the feeling of it filling her sails still elated her. Now, for the first time in her short life, she was truly in her element. More than just the ocean in itself, she could feel her crew. This tiny group of people she was carrying across the waves, like a small collection of fireflies between her hands. It felt amazing.

She understood exactly how much they were trusting her with, more than they probably understood themselves. She could feel the cold and merciless currents beneath her keel, and she could feel the fragility of her crew as she carried them, and behind the elation of finally setting sail, she began to feel the enormous warmth of wanting more than anything to keep them safe.

The wind played through her flag and her hair and she placed her spirit right at the top of her figurehead and laughed at the sky.

"What're you so happy for?" said one of the seagulls. He had landed right beside her, on the decorative horn of her figurehead, and was now looking at her as though she had annoyed him. Not that he could break her good mood so easily.

_|It is my maiden voyage. Today is the day I gain my freedom! Of course I would be happy.|_ she answered him with a grin. She had known early on that the gulls could see and hear her naturally, but this was the first time one of them had bothered to talk to her. Just for that, she could forgive his grumpy expression.

"What sort'a freedom are you talking about? Are you really so naïve you think sailin' round an island like this is freedom?"

The seagull was truly annoyed with her she decided, though she did not quite understand his words.

_|I'm sailing, am I not? I am no longer trapped on land.|_

"You're a yacht, for air's sakes, a play-ship. You've just exchanged a smaller cage for a bigger one."

With those words, he took off, and Merry was left to wonder at the meaning behind them. Not that she wondered for long. At her deck, Kaya was laughing at a school of fish, her parents were having tea and the last thing the young ship wanted to think about was the depressing words of a grumpy seagull.


	4. Boredom

Despite her initial confusion, it did not take Merry long to understand what the seagull had meant. Everyone loved sailing. Especially the mother of the house, who would always suggest taking Merry out for a while if the weather was good, and it often was. However, they never sailed far. Only a few times did they even let their home out of sight. Not even once did they stay on the sea for more than half a day.

Around the tenth trip, Merry had already gotten to know he waters around the Gecko Islands like she knew the railings to her crow's nest, where she was currently sitting, looking out to a horizon far beyond any she had ever passed. This was when she saw the silhouette of a bird she was sure she recognized.

_|Hoy! Oy, you! Is that you?|_ she called as she waved at him.

"What?" He sounded just as grumpy as last time, but nonetheless he changed his course to land on the railing beside her.

_|You were right, I'm sorry, but I'm still confused: What is a yacht and why does it mean I can never leave?|_

For a long second he just looked at her, but this time his expression was harder for her to decipher.

"Yea," he said after the pause, "I guess you don't really have any big sisters 'round to tell you this kind'a stuff, huh?"

_|I- yes, I'm the only ship on the island, you know?|_

What he said surprised her. Talking to other ships had never really crossed her mind before. She had seen them out on the ocean sometimes, sailing past with cargo and passengers. When she thought about it now, she would really like having a proper, two-sided conversation, but at the time, she had only envied them their freedom. The seagull gave a small sigh.

"Well, i's not much. A yacht's a ship that rich people own for a change'a pace. They keep 'em to play around and show off, not for travellin'. I's not like these people feel the need to go anywhere." At this, he gestured with a wing down at the little family on deck, all obviously quite happy with what they had. "So you're just gonna have to learn how to live with boredom I guess. Almost a shame, i's clear you're built to handle worse than this."

_|I… see. Thank you. Hey! Wait!| _but he had already taken off. Still, she called after him,_ |I forgot to tell you! I'm Merry. The Going Merry!|_

"Good for you." was all the answer she got.


	5. Stories

**Early chapter this week, because I'm moving back to my student apartment tomorrow and I might not have the time to update. Enjoy!**  


* * *

A few months and several equally boring trips passed by before she saw him again. She was watching with the rest of the family, and a servant or two, as the father tried to teach little Kaya how to use a fishing rod off the stern. She already kept part of her attention at the sky, and when she saw him, she was immediately up in the mast and calling. He was hardly happy about it, but he dropped by anyway.

"What d'you want now?" he asked. She was unfazed by his grump.

_|I'll show you where the family put their leftovers, so will you do me a favour?|_

This was obviously not the answer he had been expecting, for it seemed to catch him off guard and he had to blink a few times, but his next line held much less hostility.

"Uh, what kind'a favour?"

_|You've seen the world outside Gecko Island, right?|_

"Yea, 'f course. I'm a bird! Freedom's part'a our nature!"

_|Will you tell me about it? About the open oceans and the things you can find there? Will you tell me what real freedom brings?|_

Her voice rang with desperate longing. She felt trapped, caged by the very ocean that had promised her freedom, and if this hostile seabird held the key to even a fraction of that freedom, she would do anything she could to have it. For a second, she thought she saw what passes for a smile among birds cross his face.

"Sure, curly. You keep up your part'a the deal, I'll tell you all the stories you want."

-And he did.

From then on, Merry made sure to keep track of any leftovers from meals on the sea. Sometimes she would even tilt a little extra on the waves to make something fall on the deck and disappear. Opening a door or two to let her new friend, whether he admitted to being that or not, indoors was also rarely much of a problem.

(He had a name, he told her, but he rarely used it, and it would make little sense to anyone but a seagull anyway.)

In exchange, he would tell her stories. He would tell her about the wonders and the dangers of the places he had seen, and what little he knew about places he had only heard about. He would tell her what he knew about ships. He would tell her about their culture and their legends. He told her about the Oro Jackson, greatest ship of the age, even as a pirate ship, not seen for over a decade. He told her the myth of the underwater giant Noah, and the silly whispers of a ship that flew in the skies. He told her of the nearly soulless mass-produced warships of the navy, and the bloodthirsty pirate ships they fought against, and most of all, he told her of the crews and what they meant to their respective ships, and she felt all-too-clearly that there was something missing in her life.

Not that there was anything wrong with her father, or with the family in the mansion, but they were not the crew she wanted. Yacht or not, she was built for travelling, and this kind of use did not suit her.

Soon, the seagull stopped asking for food before a story, though she still gave him when she had any, and she figured that at least she had something to pass the time with, but his freedom called to him, and at times, he would disappear for up to half a year. He always came back with new stories, but while he was gone, the boredom often threatened to eat through her sails like slow moving fire. At those times, she thought there was no way things could ever get worse.


	6. Hibernation

**Okay, two things. One: I have cover art! It's just an old drawing in a notebook from back when I first started thinking about this story, maybe from when I created the seagull, and I coloured it in roughly and took a photo with my phone. Not the best quality, but I like it.**

**Two: this is also on Ao3 now, if you prefer to read things there.**

* * *

The summer of Miss Kaya's fourteenth birthday, a new employee joined the household. She gathered from their conversations that he had been rescued from near-death by the master of the house. Once the man had regained his strength, he joined the family for a small trip with Merry.

The man, Klaharod or Kuroharold or something, claimed to dislike sailing, but Merry knew the second he set foot on her deck that he had known ships before. More than that, she knew she wanted him _off_. The man gave her a bad feeling. Even as he smiled and laughed and was nothing but friendly, she felt a chill run through her bolts every time he turned his eyes towards one of her crew.

That voyage was not pleasant for anyone. It was a calm and sunny day, but Merry made sure to sail as roughly as she ever had. She hit every wave, every gust of wind, and instead of working to keep herself steady, she encouraged the sudden lurches of her body. She saw her own crew grow surprised and slightly scared, but ignored them for now. _He_ was still unfazed.

Her most important purpose, her only _true_ purpose, was to keep her crew safe. They might be land-bound and unadventurous, but they were her crew, and right now, keeping them safe meant keeping them away from this man, so she kept at it. Somewhere above her, she recognized the silhouette of her seagull, but he wisely kept clear of the raging ship and the black-clad man on her deck.

However, despite her efforts, the day was simply too calm for her to make an impression on the man, and she only ever saw him once after that. Less than two years later, her worst fears were realized.

An accident took two thirds of the happy little family away, leaving Kaya crying and alone. Soon after, she fell sick. There were no more trips around the island after that. Merry told herself that sailing would be too hard on a bedridden young girl, but on one of her regular maintenance sessions, her father confirmed what she had known all along while muttering apologies halfway to himself. For Kaya, spending her healthy days on the ship her mother had loved so much was simply too much to take. Merry resigned herself to disuse.

* * *

After the first month of nothing, she felt her consciousness slip. Soon, she was dozing in a half-aware state, unbothered by the passage of time. People came down to her shore to fish or play in the sea, and she would wake slightly to listen to their conversations. Whenever the seagull passed by she would wake up to listen to his stories, only to fall right back to sleep the second he flew away. He got better at telling stories, and she suspected he actively searched them out for her, even though she never had food for him anymore. She appreciated it. At this point, he was the only part of her life she looked forward to.

He told her later that it had been three months since the accident when she fell into a deeper sleep. Three months with only the stories of a grumpy seabird for company. One day he came to visit her and she did not wake to meet him. He had to call for her several times before her spirit finally gathered itself beside him. Later on, there were times he could not wake her at all.

She still woke, sometimes, but rarely for long, and rarely all the way. Most of the time she spent in near non-existence, only occasionally drifting past a dream-like image. Her dreams were of the sea. Nothing but endless blue. Nothing but the calm and chaotic sense of freedom. She drifted through the ocean depths and currents with her mind, listening to the tireless murmur of the water, and the world passed on above her.

Months passed her by, bringing nothing, and she waited, like the princess waited for her prince, for someone, _anyone,_ to bring her freedom.

Seasons passed, and she slept.


	7. The Crew

**Wow. This has been one of the hardest chapters to write till now, and from now on we're getting into canon territory. It's also the longest chapter this far: word said exactly 1000 words. I am going to try to keep future capters shorter, not because we don't all like long chapters, but because I have a bigger chance of updating on time with short chapters.**

* * *

It had been over a year since the accident the day the seagull returned with the sunrise to see Merry already awake and alert. She had woken up sometime during the night, abruptly and apparently for no reason. She stared, not towards the sea, but towards the island. She stared with such intensity that she almost bored holes in the hill in front of her.

"Oy, curly! You're up already? Haven't seen that for a while!" he said as he landed on her railing, too surprised to decide whether to be relieved or concerned.

_|Today is important, Mr seagull,|_ was all he got for an answer. Her eyes never left the hill.

"What kind'a important?"

_|I'm not sure. It's important enough that I have to be awake to see it.|_

An answer as infuriating as her behaviour, but it was truly all she could say. She had no clue what had woken her up nor what was keeping her awake, but she could feel a whisper in the currents, a murmur as if every drop in the ocean around her was vibrating in anticipation. Something big was happening on the island. Something as big as her seagull's stories, and she liked it, even though it concerned her. They waited in silence.

* * *

They did not need to wait for long. After only a few hours, her father came walking down the hill with a big cart in tow. He was covered in bandages and walked gingerly, obviously in pain, yet the smile on his face told Merry she had nothing to worry about. Without a pause, he boarded her and started getting her ready to sail, all the while talking softly to her. He always talked, even though there was no possible way for him to know she was listening.

"Ah, Merry," he said. "I suppose this will be the last time I see you. I will miss you, and I believe Miss Kaya will as well, but she said this is for the best. It will be better for you either way, I suppose, to sail properly."

She did not speak, did not dare to try. She felt as if speaking would break the illusion. She only listened as he told her what he knew about what had happened. At some point, a wide grin snuck its way onto her face. She wanted to dance, she wanted to laugh, she wanted to yell to the skies. This was _it._ It was happening. Finally, _finally_ happening. Her family had almost been murdered, her home island almost raided, but she was getting her _freedom_, so what did it matter? They had all been fine anyway.

Only when the seagull made an uncomfortable sound did she realize she was giggling like crazy.

* * *

They showed up soon after. It felt like a second and an eternity all rolled up into one, but there they were. There were three of them. They looked a little beaten up. They acted a little stupid. Neither of them looked like they had ever sailed a proper ship before in their lives. They were the most beautiful people she had ever seen.

For some reason they managed to seem just as happy to see her as she was to see them. They oohed and wowed and thanked Miss Kaya profusely for the generosity, but Kaya only laughed and said it was no trouble. Merry supposed it would have been hurtful to be given away so easily if she had not wanted it so much herself.

A fourth person showed up, rolling down the hill like some kind of runaway snowball. This was one she recognized, a friend of Kaya. He would sometimes come down to look at her, or just to sit down by the sea and talk to himself, making up the craziest stories. Merry liked him, and her new captain seemed to like him as well. _Her captain_. Just thinking the words made her smile again.

They were talking now. Her new crew had come aboard as easily as breathing, and were talking to the last boy, who was still standing at the shore. They were smiling and talking. They were yelling and being silly, and they were… They-

They were…

Pirates?

_They_ were pirates?

The bloodthirsty, cruel monsters of the sea that the seagull had told her about? Them?

Kaya trusted them.

They were pirates.

Her father trusted them.

They were pirates, yet…

Yet, they were giving her freedom. Yet, their feet on her deck felt so _right_. Their hands on her railings, their smiles, their mere presences filled her soul with a warmth she had never felt before.

There was only one thing to do.

Merry turned towards her captain. He was shouting to the girl, her name was Nami apparently, to 'set sail already'. She did not know his name yet. No matter.

_|Mister straw hat pirate?|_

She did not expect him to see nor hear her, and indeed, he only kept looking for a barrel of something to drink. She kept going, following behind him as she spoke.

_|Mister straw hat pirate. You are my crew. _You_ are my captain. Pirates or monsters or demons, it is my duty to protect you. So, show me the world, okay?|_

He had definitely not heard her voice, but when they toasted loudly and enthusiastically just as much for her as for their new crew member, she thought that maybe, just a little, he had understood either way.

* * *

As she left her home island completely behind for the first, and probably the last, time in her life, she noticed the seagull was still sitting on her railing.

_|You're staying with me?|_

He looked up at her, then gave a seagull version of a shrug.

"Eh, i's 'bout time I got off'a this island for good anyway, an' i's easier travellin' with ships than alone. I hope you don't mind me hitchin' a ride."

The smile she sent him was more than answer enough.


	8. Bullets and Paint

Being a pirate ship was not such a big deal, Merry figured. She was a ship, she had a crew and she was sailing. What kind of ship she was was not really all that important. If she ended up as a pirate vessel, she could deal with that.

She could deal with many things if it meant she could sail. She could deal with her crew being slightly crazy. She could deal with Usopp's tall tales. She could deal with Nami taking charge instead of the captain. She could even deal with most of the crew being complete morons.

What she could not deal with was her new captain's drawing skills. As a matter of fact, if the crew even thought of giving in to him and hanging the monstrosity he painted atop her mast, she might very well forget any dignity or duty and dump them all overboard. It was lucky for both her and the crew that they had better artists aboard.

She found herself watching the crew, whose names she had now learned, paint the huge symbol of straw hatted death on her sail more or less efficiently. First, they pulled the whole thing down and spread it out over the deck. Then Usopp painted the outline, and then everyone set to filling it in with colour and white. Usopp painted quickly and meticulously, taking fast yet broad strokes that never fell a hair out of place. Nami was similarly exact, if a tad slower. Zoro went for speed over finesse, making a bit of a mess, but nothing unfixable. Luffy was mostly told what colour to paint and where to paint it, and then yelled at whenever he got too close to a line. When they were finally done, they hoisted the sail back onto the mast to let it dry in the wind.

It was all surprisingly hard and boring work, and afterwards they lay down on the deck to have a short break. Merry watched over them and laughed to herself. If she had been told only a few months ago that she would end up with this kind of skeletal mark on her sail, she would probably have freaked out, but now? In this blessed silence, broken only by the sound of the wind and the waves, this state that only ever exists when you can no longer see the shore, she found it hard to care.

Of course, the silence did not last for long. At some point, Luffy snuck away to find one of her old cannons. They had never been used, but in this great age of pirates, they were standard issue on any ship above a certain size. As he pulled the cannon up on deck and loaded it, a small pistol materialized in her belt. It was already locked and loaded, and it felt heavy and unfamiliar as she drew it. He aimed haphazardly and she lifted her gun with him. She thought he might be aiming for a small rock of an island at her starboard side, but she had no clue what she was doing, and could do nothing to help with the aiming. She was not too surprised when he missed by a mile.

A bit sad though. Something about getting to fire the old things was making her almost giddy. She would have liked to hit something once. And again, Usopp came to the rescue. His aim was on an entirely different scale than Luffy's had been. His hands were steady and secure, and so were hers. She mirrored his movements as he adjusted her cannon, aligning the shot while instinctively taking into account the distance, the wind and the power of the shot. One trigger pulled, one fuse burned down, one bullet/cannonball fired to hit the target right on.

"Feel free to address me as captain." Usopp bragged, after getting over the shock of actually hitting something, but Luffy had other ideas.

"I've decided! You can be our sniper!"

"What? That was totally a feat deserving of captain-status!"

Merry ignored them. This conversation had happened at least five times since they set off, and she knew Luffy would talk him down soon enough. Instead, she went through the motions again. Again and again she lined up the shot and pretended to shoot, so that next time she would know just a tiny bit better how to do it, so that next time she could give just a tiny teeny push in the right direction. Just to help in any way she could.

Unfortunately, as she was occupied with this task, she did not notice the angry man with a sword before he had already climbed aboard her deck.

* * *

**Cliffhanger~ :D  
**

**Not that we don't all know exactly what's going to happen, but you know, it's fun to pretend.**


	9. Johnny

"COME OUT HERE YOU FILTHY PIRATES! I'LL SLAUGHTER ALL OF YOU!"

How had she missed that? A small ship, more of a sailboat than a ship really, had latched onto her side. The smaller vessel seemed as angry as the man who was currently screaming on Merry's deck. She also seemed relatively harmless though, so Merry focused on the man. He kicked a few barrels to pieces in rage, and Luffy slammed the door to the galley open.

"HEY! Who do you think you are?"

Merry had never seen Luffy angry before. It was an interesting sight. His easy smile was nowhere to be seen and in its place was an almost childish expression of displeasure. Still, childish or not, she could sense a strange kind of danger from him, like violent undercurrents in a playful sea. If you only swam on the surface, you would be fine, but if you dived too deep, your body might wash up to shore a week later, or never at all.

The man evidently did not sense this danger, for he only shouted something back and swung his sword at Luffy. He jumped out of the way easily, but…

"Merry!"

A part of her mind registered that the seagull sounded uncharacteristically worried. Hah. And he pretended not to care. The rest of her mind though…

It hurt. It really hurt. The sword sliced right through her railing. The broken pieces lay scattered below. Her metaphorical knees hit the deck. _This was not how it was supposed to be._ She just wanted to sail, to see the world. This was not what she wanted. This hurt. A small cut appeared on the arm of her spirit form, mirroring the physical damage. She was hurt. She was _injured. Why? No, I don't want this. I don't_

"DON'T WRECK MY SHIP!"

Her captain's dangerous undercurrents surfaced for only a fraction of a second, and the attacker slammed into a wall. The sound startled her right out of her train of thought. The pain slowly faded and she regarded the downed man as he choked out "Almost. Had him."

He had attacked her crew. He had threatened to kill them. He had swung a sword at her captain, and she was crying over a broken railing? She needed to get her priorities straight. Still, Luffy had thrown the man into a wall hard enough to beat him to submission, not for trying to hurt him, but for hurting her. The threats to his crew's lives were apparently inconsequential when compared to her small injury. The warm, fuzzy feeling this gave her was as new to her as the pain had been. Her feelings slowly settled down again. She thought she might love this crew.

Oh, and the guy with the sword was apparently an old, bounty hunting friend of Zoro's called Johnny. Because that made sense.

* * *

As the crew pulled Johnny's sick partner on board, Merry calmed down enough to talk to the seagull.

"Hey, you stopped freakin' out?" He tried to be nonchalant about it, but the tension in his body betrayed him.

_|Aww, I didn't know you cared!|_ she teased, and he bristled and puffed his feathers and visibly relaxed. After a brief pause and a teasing smile, she added _|I'm alright.|_

"You're bleedin'," he replied, with a glance from the scratch on her arm to the broken pieces of railing. She sighed, a little at his worry, a little at the situation as a whole.

_|It's just a scratch. I admit, I freaked out pretty bad, but that was only because I've never been hurt before. It could have been much worse.|_

He decided not to take the argument any further, and the two of them lapsed into friendly silence. Merry watched as Nami instructed the boys on how to cure the bleeding man on her deck. Their conversations always ran through the back of her mind. It was a nice part of being a ship, that she could follow and remember everything that happened on her. She never missed a conversation, she always knew where everyone were. Suddenly she was reminded of the little ship (or the big boat) that was still hanging off her side. A smile touched her face.

_|Hey, Mr seagull, maybe it's about time we had a little talk with our guest?|_

* * *

**One of the first ever action scenes I've written. Hope it turned out well.  
**

**Next week I'm introducing another OC, in the sense that I doubt Oda ever meant for the small, unnamed sailboat of Johnny and Yosaku to be a character. She is but the first of many.**


	10. Lucille

**There was no chapter last week. I have no good excuse for that. I also really doubt this is the last time this will happen, but for all it's worth, I'm sorry. I'll try to make it up to you. For one thing, I've drawn a picture of the OC introduced in this chapter. The link should be on my profile soon enough. I'll try to draw most of the ship-characters that show up over the course of the story, and I already have a few of them finished. All on notebook-paper though.**

* * *

Though the boat likely had sailed for longer than Merry, her spirit looked much like a child. She looked short and girlish, with dark brown hair and a blue dress. She stood on her toes, craning her neck in an attempt to look over Merry's railing to her deck, but the size difference seemed to get in the way. Merry watched her for a few seconds before she spoke up.

_|So, are you still angry?|_

_|Nu-uh,|_ the little boat answered, without averting her gaze, _|is he alright?|_

For a moment, Merry was stunned. The voice that came from the little apparition was not a sound of any kind. It was like a thought flitting quickly through her mind. A single sensation forming words and becoming a voice both louder and quieter than a sound. It had more in common with the indistinct murmur of the currents than with a human voice. _Is this what I sound like?_

Only barely too late did she remember that she had been asked a question.

_|Huh? Oh! That guy, Yosaku, right?|_

The little ship nodded and made a sound of agreement, but she never stopped trying to spot her tiny crew.

_|M-hm, he looked bad for a while, but it doesn't seem so bad now, so he's alright, right?|_ she said, referring to that strange sense a ship always had of the state of their crew. Merry smiled and nodded back.

_|Yeah, Nami's got him, and she always knows what to do, so don't you worry.|_

She still looked worried. Without thinking, Merry reached down to pick the little girl/ship up and lifted her so she could see. On her deck, the previously dying man was now walking around and acting as if he had never been sick, and the boat in her arms relaxed against her. Then she realized what she had just done.

A ship's spirit could never leave its body. Though it formed apart from the body as a whole, it was still intrinsically bound to the wood and nails of its physical form. Leaving those boundaries in any way was unthinkable. Yet here Merry stood, on her deck, with the spirit of another vessel perched in her arms. A vessel that was decidedly _not_ also laying on her deck. The realization stunned her completely for the second time in as many minutes. Luckily, the boat in question seemed too immersed in the antics of the two crews to notice.

_|How did I do that?|_ Merry asked, breathlessly, in the direction of her feathered friend on the railing.

"I dunno," he bird-shrugged back.

_|You don't?|_ She raised an eyebrow at him. He usually knew the answer to any question she could ask.

"Hey, I'm just a bird, not an expert on the relative inter-spiritual mechanics of ships!"

They stared blankly into each other's eyes for a few moments before breaking into laughter. The little ship looked questioningly at them.

_|What're you laughing at?|_ she asked, and Merry answered.

_|Haa, nothing. Don't worry about it. Hey, I don't think I caught your name?|_

_|Oh,|_ The girl looked down at her hands, suddenly shy. _|I'm Lucille. The S.S. Lucille.|_

_|It's good to meet you Lucille, I'm Merry. The Going Merry.|_

Lucille looked back up with a little smile.

_|Hi Merry. I think-|_ Here she paused, tuning back into the crews' conversation. _|I think we'll be sailing together for a while.|_

_|Well,| _Merry felt like her smile reached all the way to the back of her head. _|I'll certainly be looking forward to that.|_


	11. Wind, Waves and a Woman

**Mostly filler this time, but we're heading back into canon territory next week.**

* * *

On the recommendation of Johnny and Yosaku, Merry's course had been set for a certain inhabited stretch of ocean. With the wind as mild as it was, the men estimated that it would take as much as three days' worth of sailing to reach the place, but Merry doubted it. The reason for that doubt had to do with a certain navigator.

_|She really is amazing, isn't she?|_ Lucille commented from her spot in Merry's arms. It was early morning on the second day of their voyage, and the two vessels watched as Nami adjusted Merry's sails and rudder only a fraction. For any humans, or even the seagull, if he had been awake to see it and not roosting in the crow's nest, it would look pointless and fussy, but the ships could sense how the small changes took even better advantage of the wind. Already they were sailing through the calm waters at a speed usually reserved for much windier days.

_|She really is,|_ Merry answered, revelling in the feeling of Nami's steady hands on her helm.

_|How's she do it?|_

For a few moments, Merry only kept quiet and thought about the question. It was a good one after all, and deserved a good answer.

_|To be fair,|_ she started, _|I haven't sailed with these people much longer than you have.|_

_|No?|_ Lucille questioned.

_|No. In fact, we only just met, but I can guess. You know how humans can't feel the air and sea currents like we can?|_

She was answered by a nod._ |'Course not, 'cause they don't have sails or anything.|_

_|Right. But, it's not like they don't feel the wind at all, they just don't know how to read it. Nami though, Nami can do that. She senses the wind and waves just as instinctually as you and I do. There are people out there with incredible abilities, either ones they're born with or ones they've learned, and Nami just happens to be one of those people. I don't think she even knows why she's so much better at this than everyone else.|_

Lucille was quiet for a long few moments, thinking this over, before she turned back to Merry with a questioning look. _|But, how do _you_ know about this?|_

_|Oh! The seagull told me.|_

Lucille let her mouth fall open as she looked back and forth between Merry and the roosting gull.

He_ told you? But, he's just a rude bird!|_

Merry laughed a little at that. It was true that he had reverted to being much less sociable after she started talking to Lucille.

_|It's just because he doesn't know you. If you get to know him properly, he's really such a big sweetie, but don't let him know I said that.|_ She stage-whispered the last few words, leaning in with a mischievous smile, even though there was little chance of being heard. The seagull was not exactly an early bird. Lucille thought it was funny though, and the two ships kept up joking and chatting through the morning.

The day passed as peacefully as a day with the straw hat pirates could pass, and eventually turned into evening and later night. Once morning rolled around again, they closed in on their destination. Over the horizon rose the silhouette of the floating restaurant Baratie.


	12. Monster

**I have** **a slight case of writer's block. For you, this means short chapters which are not written as well as they might have been, and you're not meeting the spirit of the Baratie until next week. I also changed the colour-scheme of the Baratie from white-green-orange to just white-orange, because green and orange is a terrible colour scheme. This is probably the scale of any universe alteration you will see in this series though. **

* * *

The ship that appeared before them was unlike anything Merry had ever imagined. More than a ship, it looked like a cross between a fancy building, a tiered cake and a fish. It also managed to be both bright orange and classy, somehow. Really, anything that managed to stay classy with a giant fish head sticking out of its side deserved respect. Unfortunately, as she was distracted by the floating restaurant, she only noticed the other ship when her crew did. The marine ship. The one that was currently very much within firing distance.

The seagull had told her about marine ships. That they were practically mass-produced and had enough turnover of crew to never get properly attached. That their lives led to them being loyal, yet empty ships, rarely with well-developed souls. Nothing she had been told could have prepared her for the spirit standing at the bow of that ship.

It was definitely female, if remarkably masculine. She was tall, muscular and had short, mousy hair. She wore a camo suit more reminiscent of military than navy uniforms, and was armed with more guns than Merry had seen in her life, one of which was pointed straight at Merry's crew. Still, the firepower managed not to be the scariest thing about her. The scariest thing was her expression. Her face was blank, emotionless. When the seagull said empty, Merry had imagined ships without spirits at all, but that might have been better. This spirit was empty. There was only a sliver of a soul peeking out from behind those eyes.

In her arms, Merry still held Lucille. Now she let go and the little spirit snapped back to her own body. A marine who introduced himself as lieutenant Fullbody appeared, and Merry trembled slightly. She had no time to hesitate, no time to be scared. Her job as a pirate ship included protecting her crew from monsters, and if this did not count as a monster, she did not want to see what did.

Merry watched the proceedings carefully. Not once did the creature posing as a ship drop her aim. Not during the lieutenant's introduction. Not when the bounty hunter duo attacked, nor when they were effortlessly knocked back. Not even when Fullbody was dragged away by a pretty woman and claimed to have more important things to deal with. Merry was not surprised when he ordered his men to fire seconds later.

The creature pulled the trigger.

Tense as she was, the next few moments seemed to pass in slow motion. The cannon fired. The crew gasped in fright as roughly eight kilos of iron flew towards them with explosive force, but Luffy, quick as his animal namesake, jumped onto the railing in its path. He inflated, Fullbody nearly choked, and the cannonball was harmlessly bounced back. It flew in a lazy arc right past the intended target.

Right through the roof of the restaurant.

_|Oh seas,|_ Merry swore to herself.

She had thought the soulless military ship would be the scariest thing she would see that day. Looking into the eyes of the very angry, very scary spirit of a very silly-looking restaurant, she realized she had been wrong.

* * *

**Look, I don't want to be begging for reviews, But I need feedback. I currently have only one regular reviewer (you're a great person Zuzu) but I know around forty people read each chapter, I need to know what you think! What am I doing well? What can I do better? What do you want? I'm pretty sure milestone reviewers (50th 100th etc.) might get special chapters dedicated, just because. Aside from all that though, just a "Hi, I like your story." or "I like that character." means a lot to me personally. Granted, just knowing someone's still reading at chapter 12 means a lot, but a review is that little extra, you know? I love you all either way. See you next week!  
**


	13. The Baratie

**Wow, sorry for being late (again). The Baratie was difficult to write, but I think I managed a good voice for her. This is a pretty long chapter, and a notebook-picture of the Baratie should be on my profile shortly, so I hope you'll forgive my lateness. Enjoy!**

* * *

The spirit of the Baratie was big, in all senses of the word. She was taller than Merry by at least a head, and wider by more. Merry was also completely sure that if they had been human, and not just incorporeal representations of seafaring vessels, the woman in front of her would have been able to kill her with a punch.

She had blonde hair in two braids that hung down her chest. She wore an orange-striped chef's hat slightly askew on her head and pink oven-mitts on her hands. Over a simple and practical orange dress, she had an apron decorated with small fish and a cross-pattern similar to her railings. She was armed with a frying pan, which looked smaller than it was in her hands, but no less deadly. She also had a fish's tail. Not elegantly like a mermaid, but an orange, goldfish like tail suck out from behind her, waving lazily from side to side.

There was nothing lazy about the woman it was attached to. She stared down at Merry, one hand on her hip and her pan in the other. Though she looked slightly like the unlucky offspring of a mackerel and an orange, Merry felt as if she stood in front of an angry predator. She noticed one orange sleeve barely covered a wound much larger than the one she had gotten before.

_|Oh seas,|_ she swore again, before launching into a barrage of apologies. _|Oh darkest depths, I'm _sorry._ I'm really so sorry, I'm sorry, I'm, burn-my-sails, it was an accident I swear, we didn't mean it, they shot us first I'm sorry, really, really sorry.|_

She took a deep breath and noticed the restaurant looked slightly less angry, so she held it, hoping for the best. The Baratie regarded her for a second before opening her mouth.

_|Well…|_

In the silence between them, Merry heard Lucille ask the seagull what was going on.

_|Your captain was the one that lost the shot, not you. I won't blame you.|_

Merry was speechless. She was off the hook? Just because- but- not her fault? The Baratie turned around to walk.

_|Wait!|_

Part of Merry was clawing at her sails in panic for not having taken the chance, but the other part was too angry to care. The Baratie turned back.

_|I can't have that!|_

She raised an eyebrow. _|Can't have what, brat? A way out of trouble?|_

_|No-|_ Merry's resolve crumbled way under the Baratie's glare, but she kept at it. _|I meant, I don't- want- you saying that. I am absolutely responsible for my crew's actions.|_

_|The captain is the highest authority on a ship, is he not?|_

_|Yes, but he is just the captain, I am the ship! I am supposed to keep them safe, I'm responsible for them, I have to-|_ Merry took a breath and found her resolve had gone away, so once again she held her breath and hoped.

The Baratie regarded her for a few long seconds, before breaking out into a wide smile. It made her look less deadly, if not less dangerous.

_|You scared of me, brat?|_

_|…yes?|_ Merry answered, feeling like she was off the hook for real, but not entirely sure why.

_|Good, you'll survive, provided you're not heading for the Grand Line.|_ At this, she started chuckling loudly.

_|…we are.|_

_|Oh.|_ The chuckling stopped. Then the Baratie slapped her hand to Merry's back. _|Well, you'll have a better chance than most, anyway. You're a brave boat. Good crew too.|_

_|Thanks,| _Merry said, trying to recover from the slap,_ |but, um, your-|_ she gestured to the apparently completely forgotten injury.

_|Pfeh, don't you worry about that. It really wasn't your fault, it was the slaghull with the cannon who shot, and our Head Chef'll chew out your captain enough for both of you as it is.|_ As if on cue, several distressed chefs ran out of the restaurant demanding to see the perpetrator. Luffy truthfully told them it was his mistake, and was dragged into the restaurant to the sound of his crew facepalming.

Merry watched him go with worry. The Baratie watched her.

_|Want to follow him, brat?|_ she said.

_|Yes.| _Merry answered before she really had a chance to think, and then she was suddenly picked up by a pair of strong arms, as if she weighed no more than a bag of feathers. The Baratie walked towards the doors after Luffy, and for the first time in her life, Merry left her body behind. It felt entirely natural. She could still feel every bolt and board that was a part of her body, and she could still see and hear everything that was happening there, but now she also had awareness of things that were happening somewhere else. It came to her easy as breathing, but she did wonder.

_|How is this possible?|_

The Baratie eyed her for a second. _|You really are a new brat, aren't you?|_

_|Sort of. I've never really met any ships before. I knew this was possible, I just don't know how.|_

_|Hmm- We're metaphors, kid.|_

_|What?|_ Merry dangled her legs a little out of reflex, but stopped when the larger ship gave her a look.

_|We. You and I. these human forms. We're metaphors for our souls. Your body is tied to mine with a rope, that means we're connected. As long as I'm holding you, our common grounding point is my feet, and as long as they're touching my deck, which is physically connected to your body, metaphorically, you haven't left your body at all, see?|_

Merry took a moment to digest that as they passed through a door from a busy restaurant, which she had somehow not noticed they were passing through, into a much less busy hallway and up a set of stairs. _|That makes no sense at all!|_

They followed the hallway through a door and into a room with a rather impressive new skylight. Luffy was there arguing with a tall, one-legged man. The Baratie smirked at her and said, _|it's the real world, brat, it _is_ sense, you just don't understand it.|_

* * *

**Thank you, by the way, to everyone who rewieved after last chapter. You're great, and I hope you keep enjoying until the end. I'm certainly planning to. **


	14. Violent Negotiations

**Ooh, look! An update! Awfully late, though. I blame depression.**

* * *

Merry watched from her perch as Luffy negotiated for his freedom. The head chef demanded that he work at the restaurant for an entire year to make up for the damages, and Luffy refused. Unfortunately, it seemed that the head chef was one of those rare people who were just as stubborn as Luffy. Neither side gave a single hair towards compromise, and negotiations turned into quarrelling turned into actual violence. Merry found herself profoundly happy that Luffy was near invulnerable to blunt damage.

Like the Baratie herself, the old man turned out to be far more dangerous than he looked. Only a few blows into the fight the floor broke under the force of his kick, and Merry realized why the Baratie seemed so resistant to pain. She barely even flinched as her floorboards shattered.

After that followed several minutes of chaos.

They had apparently fallen right on top of another fight happening on the floor below. A well-dressed blond man, whom the Baratie nonchalantly introduced as the sous chef Sanji, was being held back by three other chefs to prevent him from beating a customer to death. A second look told Merry that beneath the blood and broken nose, the customer was none other than Fullbody. Merry was okay with that.

Over the next minute and a half, everyone accumulated several new injuries, and the marine lieutenant tried unsuccessfully to crawl away to safety. The chaos ended abruptly as a marine officer barged through the doors.

"Lieutenant Fullbody! We have an emergency!"

The blood running down his face and the fact that he took no notice of the broken tables and general mayhem in the restaurant spoke of how big an emergency it was. Every person in the room stopped hitting and shouting at each other to stare at him. He kept shouting.

"Forgive me sir, but the prisoner has escaped! Krieg's man! It took us seven men to take him down in the first place, and now he's gone!"

"That's impossible!" Fullbody shouted back, and what he said next nearly drowned in the sudden panic of every diner in the room, "He shouldn't even be moving! He was dying three days ago, and we haven't fed him since, and now you're telling me-"

The marine officer's apology, however, was interrupted by the sound of a pistol shot. When the man's now lifeless face hit the floor, there was absolute silence.

From the few moments of panic, Merry had gathered a few facts. Don Krieg was apparently the name of an infamous pirate with a huge fleet of ships. He was supposedly more monster than man, and this man, the man standing with a smoking pistol over the corpse in the door, this man was Krieg's man.

He looked dangerous, Merry thought, in the same way the fake murder-butler had looked dangerous, only worse, and this man was not hiding it. He also seemed sick. It was clear Fullbody had not been lying about his strength. The Baratie still stood nonchalantly though, and when she looked around, none of the chefs looked faced either. Considering Merry could sense quite a bit of danger on them too, she figured there was no reason to worry. While the man looked dangerous, unlike with the murder-butler, he did not feel like a danger to her crew.

He was not, really. Once things got violent, he was quite effectively thrown (and kicked, and punched) out of the restaurant.

"Get the hell out of here," they said, "we've got no food for penniless pirates."

The Baratie twitched as if she disagreed.

* * *

Krieg's man lay on the deck in a bloody pulp, too weak now to even try to stand up. The Baratie stood over him with a frown. They had stood there for several minutes and Merry had yet to muster the courage to ask why. Suddenly, a door opened beside them and one of the chefs came out. The well-dressed one who had been beating up Fullbody. Sanji.

He placed a full plate of food in front of the dying man, and he wolfed it down crying like, well, like a starving man given food. The Baratie smiled warmly at her chef, and Merry finally got confused enough to ask.

_|Is he… going against what the other chefs said?|_

_|Humans,|_ the Baratie started, _|need food to live, and starvation is one of the worst ways to die. 'Course, a restaurant exists to make money, but the biggest duty of a sea chef is always to keep people fed. Y'see, brat? Sanji isn't breaking any rules, he's just remembering his duty.|_

Merry chewed on that for a few seconds.

_|So… this man is potentially very dangerous and possibly capable of contacting someone even more dangerous, he's part of a crew that's known for never showing mercy, and Sanji gave him food because… he was hungry?|_

_|Duty's duty. A chef's is as important as a doctor's.|_

She felt a smile similar to the Baratie's grow on her face.

_|I think I like him!|_

_|Your captain agrees.|_

_|What?|_ She looked up, and Luffy was indeed hanging over the railing there, grinning his inhumanly wide grin and trying to invite Sanji to his crew.

Invite Sanji to join the crew? Wonderful idea!

Merry felt her smile widen more. Luffy might be an idiot, but he did get some bright ideas sometimes, even if they did include "refusing a refusal". An annoyed sound from the Baratie pulled her out of her train of thought.

_|Thinking of stealing my crew, are you?|_

_|Huh? Oh!|_ Merry shook her head and started frantically waving her arms, but she could not quite stop smiling, so the effect was diminished somewhat. _|Oh, no no no. we wouldn't steal anyone. We'd borrow him at most. Adopt? Isn't it called 'kidnapping' anyway, with people? But, no, we're definitely not _stea-

The Baratie let go of her grip on Merry, and her perception snapped back to be centred only on her own body. Waiting there for her were Lucille and the seagull, both with questions in their eyes. Well, the seagull tried to pretend not to be interested, and Lucille was openly curious.

_|What happened? We heard gunshots, and I think there was a fight on the navy ship.|_

_|Oh, nothing much,| _Merry said, still smiling,_ |just a little fight, but I think I'm getting a new crewmember!|_

"What's the long story?" the seagull asked, trying and failing to sound indifferent. She told them.

And then the days started passing.


	15. Conflict Pileup

**So, it's been a while. Real life has been rough lately, but I'm still alive. You guys have no reason to worry though, there might be a bit of time between chapters sometimes, but this fic will never die, I guarantee it. Anyway, we're getting into the really dramatic parts now, enjoy!**

* * *

The next two days passed in relative peace. To no one's surprise, Luffy turned out to be a terrible cabin boy. Exactly how bad was hard for Merry to tell, since the Baratie had refused to let her back in to see after the initial mess. A couple of times Lucille wondered if they would really be stuck there for an entire year, but Merry saw no reason to worry. Not about that, anyway.

She did worry about Nami. Since the first meeting with Fullbody, the navigator had gotten an uneasiness to her, which resonated with Merry in an unpleasant way, like a dissonance of emotion. Neither did it help that a second threat appeared halfway through the second day. It appeared first as a tiny disturbance, like the noise of a bug in her ear, but quickly grew to something large and looming as it approached. As she sometimes caught the Baratie staring absentmindedly at the horizon from the balcony, Merry knew she was not the only one to notice. Even so, the seagull was the first one to spot it.

Merry and Lucille sat chatting amiably on one of Merry's railings when he nearly crash-landed beside them, wide-eyed and frazzled. There was a silence for a few moments as he caught his breath.

"There's a ship headin' this way!" he said, once he had.

_|Is it a _scary_ ship?| _Lucille teased him. She still could not bring herself to taking the grumpy bird seriously, but Merry just frowned and watched as he gestured wildly with his wings.

"I's blightin' _huge_ tha's what it is! Looks like some kind'a warship. I's scary as _storms_!"

Instead of saying anything, Merry just moved to the top of her mast, trying to get a glimpse of this ship. Lucille went quiet as well. After half a minute of perusing the horizon, Merry spotted the mast of a ship rising into view.

The seagull was right, she was huge, and coming straight at them. The three watched in silence as the stranger approached. Her imposing form was enough to strike Merry speechless. Merry was not a large ship by any means, maybe big enough to shelter a dozen crewmembers comfortably, but this new ship would tower over her like a giant would a mouse. Her lion-like figurehead was close to the size of Merry's entire body, and her tattered sails blotted out the sky. Or, they would, if it were not for all the holes. In fact…

_|She's kind of…broken, isn't she?| _Lucille said.

She was. Never mind the sails, one of her masts was halfway broken, her hull was so full of holes she must have been leaking like a sieve, and even her fierce cat of a figurehead was beat up and broken. On it, Merry could just make out a figure that had to be the spirit of the ship. She was leaning on a gun the size of herself and looked like a light breeze would knock her over. She was definitely broken.

_|Yes, but don't let your guard down either way, eh?|_

She was stating the obvious, really, and Lucille just nodded in response. Despite her beat-up nature, they could both still clearly feel a strong sense of danger from her. Again, they went quiet and watched.

Soon enough, the broken warship was docked by the much smaller Baratie. On the other side of the restaurant, Merry and Lucille could not see much, but the seagull flew over and informed them that two men came onto the Baratie from the warship. One of them tall, wearing a cape and leaning on the other, who matched the description of Gin, the pirate Sanji had fed some days earlier, which would make this broken ship the flagship of the largest pirate fleet of the East Blue. Don Krieg himself had come for a visit.

* * *

About half an hour later, the situation was still tense. Most of Merry's crew had gone to see what was going on, leaving only Nami and Lucille's bounty-hunters behind. There had been fighting, there had been shooting and then quiet. The tall man who had to be don Krieg returned to his ship with a large sack of food for his crew, and then nothing. Something bad was on the verge of breaking out, Merry could feel it to the bottom of her keel. They could not afford to have anything unexpected show up now, but alas…

_|Merry, is your navigator stealing all our treasure?|_


End file.
